Customer Reviews
Please do not support a business that does not offer support 
2004-07-16
Me, like many others have the problems with the Blue Screen of Death, and an NMI Parity error. It has nothing to do with memory or anything else. There is a problem with the driver which D-Link have done nothing to remedy. They have been continously confronted with the problem, but does not offer any solutions except for one that solves the problem on a particular Compaq model.
This company does not deserve any customers. Please buy another WLAN card.
another problem device 2004-07-02
I echo other complaints about the DWL520. The connection is made with very good signal strength and quality. However, the device refuses to make any throughput. It would almost never successfully load a page. The irony is that I am using another Dlink product as the router. The 520 is a poor product.
Product is junk and tech support a joke. 2004-05-10
Using this wirless network card dropped my internet download speed from 2700 Kbps to 1200 Kbps.
That's with link quality of 100 and only one other computer on the network with no applications running on either computer (aside from the one browser window required for the test). Both computers had brand new DLink DWL-520 Wireless network cards operating into a new DLink DI-514 router.
Following industry standards, DLink apparently mans their first echelon phones with technical illiterates who while capable of following a scripted check list, haven't a clue what's causing your problem or how their sequence of steps might might solve it.
So, after numerous calls, multiple case IDs, and never talking to the same person twice, I decided it was best to cut my losses and give up before they reconfigured my computer to the point where it wouldn't work at all.
If you surf the web a lot or do internet gaming, stay clear of DLink products. Stick with a reputable name and save yourself the aggravation and wasted hours trying to make cheap junk like this work. The money you save isn't worth the headaches.
Waste of time and money. 2004-04-13
DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, PURCHASE THIS CARD
I bought this NIC at CompUSA for $40 and thought it would make a nice, low cost wireless card. This thing was a nightmare from start to finish. The configuration utility that comes with it is totally counterintuitive. Nothing is where you think it would be. After installation, it detected my wireless network just fine. Steady 80-90% signal strength with NINETY-FIVE PERCENT packet loss. The connection would be stable for two minutes at the most and then die. I tried different PCI slots, I tried different channels, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software... nothing worked. I called D-Link support multiple times and spoke to a totally clueless "technician" each time. They offered such pearls as "try a different router" and "try uninstalling your sound card". Please.
There are plenty of other complaints online about this piece of junk. Don't bother buying this card. It's a complete joke.
Major software bug and NO customer support 2004-03-03
The 520+ "works"... for the most part. However, it
has a fundamental software bug that causes an NMI memory
parity error on shutdown causing your computer to freeze
with a "blue screen" and error message. There is no way
out of the freeze unless you unplug the computer.
For Compaq's they have a workaround to their bug. You may...
may... might be able to workaround their bug by diddling your
system BIOS (always a fun adventure unless you botch up a keystroke). For HP (and possibly others) there is no workaround. You are stuck. Repeated emails to D-Link have yielded nothing, which says something about there customer "service".
Stay away from D-Link unless you like pulling the power
plug in and out on your computer. Poor, buggy software and NO
customer service.
Use and install at your own significant risk.
Not too stable 
2006-06-21
i've been using this card for several months and if i have too many programs open at the same time, it disconnects & takes a while to reconnect. this never happened when i used wired-cable 'net. i use winxp & a motorola wireless modem/router combo and from reading the reviews, i think the problem is probably the card. im going to upgrade to a different brand.
BAD - no unix/linux support 2005-03-10
D-Link created a confusion out there in the market area, selling the wirelss adapters with diffrent chipset using the same name for them.
The first models (version A and B) used to have Prism chipset from Intersil (which are supported by POSIX sistems) but now they changed thei chipset with other vendors like Realtek without changing the name of the product - that's how I bought this thinking it is spported - unfortunaltelly it is not !
Good value 
2004-12-30
There's a lot of bad reviews here, and I don't doubt people's experience. For me however it's worked great. No problems setting up or using. Good value for the money (...). I'm using Windows Media Center 2005.
D-Link DWL-520 2004-09-03
Picked this NIC up because it was selling for a reasonable price. I am using it with a Netgear MR814 Wireless B Router. Have had no problems with it since. It is running on a generic Pentium-III running Windows 2000 Server. I did experience some of the slow-down effect reported (slow mouse movement) initially, but when I upgraded to the latest software, that seemed to solve the problem. This computer is upstairs, about 40 feet away from the router. I bought a second one and installed it on another server downstairs - a PowerEdge 400SC about 20 feet from the router running Win2K pro. Again, no problems and no dropped signals.
I get about 75% strength upstairs and 90% downstairs. It does not interfere with the Netgear wg511 that I am using with my laptop. If you're looking for an affordable, basic, wireless NIC, consider this one. I recommend installing the latest software from the website first to ensure compatibility.
Wireless Adapters 
2004-07-24
All of these negative reviews really surprised me. I have had this wireless adapter for over two months and it has not given me a bit of trouble.
I have a home network, consisting of four desktops and a laptop. My network equipment consists of a Netgear router, 2 Linksys wireless PCI adapters, this D-Link wireless adapter, Netgear wireless card adapter, and a Linksys ethernet card. Of the three wireless adapters, this D-Link has been the most reliable.
Let me add that this situation may have more to do with the operating system on those computers, rather than the Wireless adapters themselves. The Linksys adapters (WMP 11) are both installed on computers with the Windows XP Pro operating system. They give me constant trouble. They lose connection with the router on a regular basis. I noticed that this did not happen with a computer running Windows XP Home Edition that did not have the Windows XP Service Pack 1 installed. I am not alone in having this problem. There are plenty of people using Windows XP, with the Service Pack, that experienced the same problems. There is a possible fix in the microsoft knowledgebase.
This D-Link adapter is installed on an old, Pentium III computer. This particular computer is running Windows 2000 Advanced Server, as well as Windows 2000 Pro in a dual-boot configuration. I have not experienced any difficulties with this system. None.
I can find no fault with this adapter. Perhaps there are other factors that are causing the difficulties. I must admit that I have not explored the possibility of the Netgear router having a "preference". Unlikely, but perhaps possible. I would have preferred to have all my equipment come from the same vendor. However, given the situation, this D-Link adapter has been the most solid component of my mixed-vendor network. Since these reviews are based on our personal experience, and mine has been great, I would have to give this device a five-star rating.
I will try and install the D-Link adapter on a desktop running Windows XP Pro, with the Service Pack installed, to see how it will perform.
